Anatomy Of New Zealand's 2024 T20 World Cup Shambles
New Zealand's Blackcaps have stunk up the T20 World Cup with back to back losses against Afghanistan and West Indies exposing all sorts of cracks in a once hearty aura. Let's break it all down so we can flush this dunny and forget about the Blackcaps for a while...
Squad Selection
Not too many issues here. The squad of 15 resembled the best cricketers from Aotearoa and while there were blokes who were struggling for form, leaving someone like Devon Conway out of this squad would have been a rather drastic move. Matt Henry's inclusion was a bit iffy but he probably wouldn't have been selected if Adam Milne was available, while Ben Sears was in the mix too.
Sears was still in the touring crew and the cricketing world's fetish for IPL matters works in Henry's favour here. Henry played four IPL games this year and while he didn't do much, it seems extravagant to select Sears ahead of someone who earned a IPL call up.. Sears ahead of Tim Southee? Southee is in his fourth consecutive year of T20I bowling averaging below 21 which amounts to the best phase of his lengthy T20I career so that seems like a stretch too.
One interesting pocket is the wicket-keeping spot as Tim Seifert was overlooked. Seifert played eight T20Is this year (19.5avg/116sr) and didn't quite do enough to command selection, especially given how unlikely it was that Conway would be dropped. Seifert played three seasons of Caribbean Premier League as well for what that's worth.
Preparation
Everyone knows that New Zealand didn't play any warm up games. It was a bummer that they also struggled to grind through practice reps due to conditions in the Caribbean, although that is only pesky because they didn't have any warm up games. Blackcaps made their bed with no warm up outings and didn't leave any space for variables like the weather.
You've heard about that because every cricket pundit has moaned about it. You may not have noticed how Blackcaps played 13 T20Is this year prior to the World Cup and 10 were against Pakistan ... the only team who has been more shambolic in this tournament. Thankfully, New Zealand is far less diabolical than Pakistan in a cricketing context so grateful for that. What about the other three T20Is this year? Three losses to Australia in Aotearoa.
Pakistan were mediocre when they toured New Zealand in January and then a second-tier Blackcaps group went to Pakistan for a 2-2 series. Outside of this T20 World Cup shambles, a 2-2 series result in Pakistan with a development team is a good result.
New Zealand were quick to point out difficulties in gathering their World Cup squad due to IPL commitments, meanwhile England pulled their World Cup players out of the IPL early to prepare for this tournament. New Zealand does not have the power of England and yet most of the Blackcaps in the IPL didn't play many games. No one would have really cared if Blackcaps departed the IPL early but the decision makers opted to not have a backbone.
Team Selection
New Zealand played 13 T20Is prior to the T20 World Cup, Ish Sodhi played 11 of them and Sodhi was not selected for the two T20 World Cup losses. Sodhi has played 17 T20 World Cup games with an impressive record (17.7avg/7rpo) and he was the only Blackcaps player not selected in the first two games.
Trent Boult was the best kiwi IPL player and Rachin Ravindra wasn't far behind. Ravindra was one of the few Blackcaps who had momentum heading into this tournament after 10 IPL innings (22avg/161sr) and yet New Zealand persisted with the ever-slumping Conway as well as Mark Chapman who doesn't seem capable of scoring runs outside of Pakistan.
Three changes were made after the loss to Afghanistan. The fact that those changes didn't include Sodhi is baffling and these changes were either pre-planned or a reaction to the loss. Neither scenario suggests a clear style of play or identity. Despite selecting the best available T20 cricketers for this World Cup, somehow New Zealand didn't roll out their best team and that's a recipe for losing.
Performance
Blackcaps consistently made ODI and T20 World Cup semi-finals, with a few finals appearances and a World Test Championship win by playing like kiwis. Smart tactics, quick adaptions and the nitty gritty that kiwis love such as fielding intensity and desperation between the wickets are important elements of Blackcaps performance. Most of that vanished for this T20 World Cup and New Zealand were more sloppy than smart.
When they tried to be smart, it was trying to be too smart. There is a fine line between nifty tactics and catering too far into match ups etc. This Blackcaps campaign not only saw New Zealand struggle to meet their performance standards with intangibles, it skewed towards over complicating what usually works.
The most notable player performance wrinkle is Daryl Mitchell offering an economy rate (17.5rpo) that was higher than his batting average (8.5avg). That sums everything up nicely because Mitchell probably shouldn't have been bowling and he was part of a batting unit that sucked (lads who batted twice)...
Finn Allen: 26 runs @ 13avg/108sr
Devon Conwy: 13 runs @ 6.5avg/72sr
Kane Williamson: 10 rns @ 5avg/66sr
Daryl Mitchell: 17 run @ 8.5avg/94sr
Glenn Phillips: 58 runs @ 29avg/113sr
Phillips, Allen and Mitchell Santner were the only players who had strike-rates over 100. Meanwhile, Santner didn't perform as one of the best ODI/T20I spinners in the world after a solid-but-meh 2w @ 32avg/7.1rpo in the IPL. Santner took 1w @ 51avg/8.5rpo in the first two games which is aligned with Santner's mahi this year (38.5avg/8.4rpo); this is just the third year out of 10 with Santner averaging 30+ and conceding more than 8rpo.
Keeping A Positive Outlook
The Blackcaps are officially mid. They have had Test losses against Bangladesh, South Africa, England and Australia in New Zealand over the past few summers. Add in the White Ferns and there isn't much of a home advantage for New Zealand at the moment, while Blackcaps are also emulating White Ferns in all sorts of ways. The aura has diminished. Expectations need to be adjusted about who Blackcaps are and what they do.
I'm not here to tell you that everything is honki-dory because obviously that is not the case. This is a fascinating juncture for Blackcaps though as the emerging cricketers are awesome and they have skills that New Zealand cricket hasn't seen much off. Sears and Will O'Rourke both offer funky skillsets while bowling at least 140km/h - when has Aotearoa produced two seamers like that to make Test debuts in the same summer?
Blackcaps have already been boosted by emerging talent. Phillips and Ravindra are now certified Test cricketers, Allen's the chief slugger. Ben Lister, Tim Robinson, Josh Clarkson, Dean Foxcroft, Adithya Ashok and Zak Foulkes have all been promoted to Blackcaps in recent years. Nathan Smith has blatant Blackcaps talent and he will make his debut soon enough, while Mitch Hay forecasts as the next wicket-keeper capable of playing all three formats. Funnily enough, one of the intriguing T20 spin prospects is Tim Pringle who is a hearty kiwi currently playing for Netherlands.
There is no reason to doubt the talent coming through the Blackcaps pipeline and new selector boss Sam Wells has already stamped his mark on the job by promoting young talent. Keep in mind that when young talent has been selected ahead of experienced players like Finn Allen vs Martin Guptill and O'Rourke/Sears vs Neil Wagner, many folks have cried foul ... which is in contrast to many folks complaining about Blackcaps being too old.
This T20 World Cup campaign sucks and it sets up a phase in which the current group of players must step up with runs/wickets, or lose their spots to a new wave of players. The youngsters must demand selection through their performances though and the best players will win this race. Doom and gloom is in the building, but New Zealand has talent lurking below the radar that can invigorate Blackcaps cricket.
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Peace and love.